Deborah Stone, Counting: How we Use Numbers to Decide What Matters (New York: Liveright, 2021). 312 pp. $26,95 (Hardcover), ISBN: 978‐1‐63149‐592‐2

• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Mark Ostaijen
• Date: 01 March 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13480

372Public Administration Review • March | Apri l 202 2

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 2, pp. 372–374. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13480.

In times of big data, algorithmic societies

(Schuilenburg and Peeters2020), artificial

intelligence, running COVID-19 numbers on

hospitalized patients, we are everyday confronted with

the increasing urgency and importance how we use

numbers. Especially, since our governments rely on

“objectifiable facts,” reflexive understanding about

how numbers come into being is much needed. This

is exactly where the new book of Deborah Stone

comes in, as she introduces in the beginning that

“in order to counts one must decide what counts.”

That means what we count has meaning and value.

Therefore, every counting activity is a judgment

instead of a neutral activity. Since “a number is only

the period at the end of a life story. We don’t really

know what a number means until someone brings

it to life” (p. 65). With this book, Stone enlivens

numbers.

This book draws our attention to counting as a

meaning-making practice. It is about “how we use

numbers to decide what matters” as the subtitle

suggests. And since not a single number “tells its

own story,” we are in dire need to understand

how numbers are the so-called objective, neutral

or trustworthy devices of persuasive stories and

narratives. This has special importance in the realm

of public policy making and speaks to the heart of the

expertise and well-known work of Deborah Stone. As

a renowned scholar in the field, known for her work

on policy making as storytelling, she has paved the

way for many social constructivist, interpretive, and

critical scholars studying practices of policy making

and politics. In that sense, this book epitomizes more

fundamentally her work on policy making, as a social

practice of decisions and determinations. Since already

in her book on the “Policy Paradox,” she included

that “numbers, in fact, work exactly like metaphors”

(1988, 165). But also in her book on disability

(Stone1984) shows that disability is not an “objective

medical phenomenon of taking X-rays,” but about

people deciding about deservingness. Therefore, one

could argue that her oeuvre comes together in this

book, now showing that numbers are not neutral

devices but moral judgments. This has major value to

the field of policy making and policy science because

“even today, most policy analysis assumes that once you’ve

made a count of some phenomenon and you present a

percentage, say, your number is real. Scholars gloss over

what is behind categorizing things that made it possible

for you to come up with that number” (van Ostaijen and

Jhagroe,2015: 130).

The book positions itself in a long-standing tradition

of qualitative contributions on the quantitatively side

of (democratic and public) life (Desrosières1998).

It relates to the politics of numbers (Van Ostaijen

and Scholten2017), why we “trust in numbers”

(Porter1995), to what extend numbers contribute to

a “rhetoric of objectivity” (van Leeuwen2007), the

significance about “modes of relating” (Mol2011)

or more generally how states make societies legible

(Scott2008). The book includes seven chapters in

which convincingly the argument is illustrated. That

argument can be summarized to the extent that

every number is a judgment and a “moral choice,”

since statistics are “always accessory to a purpose.”

But it shows how in the process of making “we

make numbers and numbers make us” since “what

our numbers do to others, they do to us as well.” It

is this interrelational and performative perspective

which sticks. And therefore, it includes a call to treat

numbers in humble ways because “we need humility

[…] to help us count better” (p. 218).

Stone shows that counting, as a verb, is a (wo)

man-made activity, but especially, since it is more

and more outsourced (by algorithms or AI), we

cannot underestimate that numbers always contain

judgments, assumptions, and moral choices about

the good life. She starts her argument by illustrating

how children are taught to count. This is done by

the simple formula to “judge this as that.” Therefore,

counting is always a comparative exercise, to classify,

and therefore “numbers are like metaphors.” And

particularly in such a comparative exercise, counting

Mark van Ostaijen is as Assistant

Professor affiliated to the Department of

Public Administration and Sociology (DPAS/

ESSB) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

He works as Managing Director of the

LDE Centre Governance of Migration and

Diversity.

Email: vanostaijen@essb.eur.nl

Deborah Stone, Counting: How we Use Numbers to Decide

What Matters (New York: Liveright, 2021). 312 pp. $26,95

(Hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-63149-592-2

Mark van Ostaijen

Erasmus University Rotterdam,The Netherlands